The Next James Bond Movie Has an Interesting Working Title

There’s a new hint of what could be the real title (or is at least the working title) of Bond 25, the upcoming new James Bond adventure. Via The Guardian, we’ve got a new report that the film is going under the title Shatterhand. It sounds like a member of Rob Liefeld’s X-Force (and maybe it was also) but in fact Shatterhand is a phrase created by Bond author Ian Fleming more than 50 years ago.

Industry publication Production Weekly has included a listing in its 21 February newsletter for “Bond 25 w/t Shatterhand”, with shooting due to start at Pinewood studios on 6 April. It appears to confirm longstanding rumours that Shatterhand is a contender for Bond 25’s official title. The name comes from an alias used by series supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Ian Fleming’s 1964 Bond novel You Only Live Twice.

On the one (shatter)hand, Shatterhand is a pretty silly word. On the other hand, pretty much every Bond name or title is silly? Shatterhand certainly less silly than Octopussy, an actual James Bond film that really exists. Then again, Octopussy was a light comedy — Bond goes disguised as a circus clown at one point — and given than Bond 25 is a Daniel Craig Bond, and his movies tend to be a bit more serious and grim, I have a hunch the film will arrive in theaters with a different title.

Either way, that working title suggests Blofeld will be back for Shatterhand or Bond 25 or You Only Live Thrice or whatever they end up calling it. That could be a very big clue about what the film be about (Christoph Waltz played Bond arch-enemy Blofeld in Spectre, but the character had a history of changing his face, and being played by different actors, in the 1960s, so they could use that gag again.) Bond 25 recently had its release date delayed. The film will now open on April 8, 2020.